Overview
- Pope León XIV reiterated on Sunday, Sept. 27, in Lourdes that it is “impossible” to consider euthanasia and assisted suicide normal while speaking to sick and disabled pilgrims.
- He warned that what is legal is not necessarily moral, explicitly condemned abortion and the “temptation to take life,” and said medicine must never become the servant of a programmed death.
- During a visit to the Accueil Notre‑Dame care center and a Mass on the sanctuary esplanade attended by roughly 150,000 people, the pope met patients, caregivers and volunteers and called the sick the beating heart of humanity.
- He urged governments and health systems to strengthen palliative care and medical research as alternatives to assisted dying and appealed for concrete acts of mercy and penitence.
- The remarks intensify the Vatican’s moral clash with France after Parliament legalized assisted dying in July and signal renewed pastoral mobilization and public debate over end‑of‑life policy.